As he tapped away at the iPad, Juliano said, “At 9:47 a.m.—”

The door opened, and Dr. Burke and the young Ms. Whelan crowded into the conference room.

“Glad to see you’re making new friends, Dr. Burke, but are you ready to get to work?” Carter said.

“Sure thing.”

Carter gave Burke an exaggerated look to make sure that the young man understood his annoyance. Then, he said, “Go ahead, Officer Juliano.”

“You can call me Nic, sir. Short for Dominic.”

Sgt. Ortiz returned with a cup of steaming coffee and said, “And you can call me Taz. Short for Tasmanian Devil.”

Carter smiled and accepted the coffee with a thank you, and then he motioned with his cup for Nic to continue.

“At 9:47 a.m., a group of three men armed with assault rifles and possibly explosives entered the GoBox facility and took eleven people hostage.”

Nic tapped the iPad and a large display mounted to the wall came to life with grainy security camera footage. “This is them entering the building,” he said.

The video showed three men walking into the frame. They wore long coats and ski masks. The trio approached the door. Carter pointed at one of the masked figures and said, “This one is huge.”

“Yes, sir, probably at least seven feet. Maybe bigger.”

“Have you sent the footage anywhere for analysis?”

“No, sir, not yet.”

“Okay, we’ll get some of our techs on it.”

Carter looked over at Burke, who was playing around on his own oversized iPad. He wanted to tell Burke to put away his toys and pay attention, but he held his tongue.

Nic changed the video to an interior shot of the facility. On the screens, the same three men stormed inside and expertly secured the room. Two of them moved like soldiers. First, they surprised and subdued the two guards in the lobby, and then they destroyed the cameras.

“I’m assuming the video feeds to an outside location?” Carter asked.

“Yes, sir, but once the cameras are out, we lose the whole lobby and reception area,” Taz said. “And these guys knew right where the guards would be standing and where the cameras were located.”

“This is obviously no standard smash-and-grab,” Carter said. “You said you lost video for the front of the building, does that mean that you have eyes in the back?”

“Yes, up until a few minutes ago anyway,” Nic said. “But before we discuss that, you’re going to want to see this.”

Chapter 20

Sam Carter watched as the giant squeezed the woman’s neck, lifted her from the floor, and placed the barrel of a large caliber revolver to her temple. Then he watched as they played Russian roulette with the same hand cannon.

“As you can see, the reason we don’t have any causalities yet isn’t because they don’t have the stones to go that far,” Nic said. “This guy didn’t even flinch when he pulled the trigger. A real psycho.”

“Yes, I see your point,” Carter said. “Give me the timeline again. 9:47, they enter the bank.”